Dungeon Master Stuck in a Time Trap Pacing in D&D- GM 911

[@Nerdarchy]

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[@z_zoom11]

I thought this was going to be about a groundhog day like time trap.

[@TheAserghui]

not a real user name that would make for an interesting session

[@bbeg-j2p]

that sounds like an amazing mission: a Flashpoint/ground hog day type scenario where they keep having to go back until they accomplish the mission successfully.

[@z_zoom11]

Ragnar Rok that's I was picturing.

[@asuperpro]

I think one of the keys of pacing is... pardon my word choice, foreplay. As an example, the start of a main plot for a group I played in was the attempted assassination through ingested poison of the mayor of the town. While we were trying to find clues, the would-be assassin tried to slip away. After figuring out who-dun-it, we then had to track him to his hideout. The hideout was a dungeon with many traps, monsters, etc. So in the course of 4-5 in game days, we saved the mayor's life and caught the assassin. We had roleplay, investigation, tracking, and combat. We went from level 5 to 6.

[@nathankroll3356]

My group thought of this problem very early on, and our solution was a town we call The Grand Bazaar/Bizarre (depends on who you ask). The premiss of the town is it is a town of adventurers, so all the shops have really weird hours like only open every third Tuesday. With these little quirks the town is a bit of a character itself. Anyways this town allows my group to swap party members out with some of the townsfolk which helps distribute leveling. This great for our campaign because we have done slight changes to all the outer realms, and we want to do an indepth look into each. The Grand Bazaar/Bizarre has been my favourite D&D character in my D&D experience to date.

[@aaron2187]

this happened in my game so i literally gave them a quest for Lord Neverember to clear castle Never and sure they got a cool rewards but the reward took a month for Neverember to go gather, this forced my players into giving downtime some thought and thats exactly what they did, thus breaking up the adventure drive.

[@LikeButton7]

I love milestone leveling. Makes sure I can put them against what I want when I want.

[@delongjohnsilver7235]

Clearing things up: 1. I do use milestones and travel time with random encounters in between. My players are just rather creative in how they problem solve so I feel I should reward them 2. I too use a calendar, that’s how I noticed the short time 3. We do rp as a group quite often, usually only having combat when it makes sense to. But the video did help me overall, this next session I’ll probably have the next arch take place 60 days post demon attack as the town tries to recover.

[@gnarthdarkanen7464]

Noticed the part about "...rather creative in how they problem solve so I feel I should reward them..." YES... You most certainly should reward creative problem solving skills and especially in group efforts... BUT... there are more than XP bonuses specifically for this purpose. I'm personally a long-time XP-purist in my style of GM'ing... but that aside, I also engineer or otherwise create unique items and loots for the players to gain in their creativity at problem solving... AND sometimes, the best solution to a puzzle is rewarded by avoiding an otherwise "unfortunate" kind of confrontation outright. It should be relatively visible at some point after they've resolved the "puzzle" or made the "best choice" that they could have done something different and the game would've taken a distinctly "worse" turn... Like (just an example) they reach a crossroads, and can pick any of three directions... (this works well in rocky areas, caves, or mountain passes)... There are scratches on some of the larger rocks, animal tracks in some of the mud... and everyone takes a perception check to notice some of those scratches are distinctly angular or patterns with straight lines... Closer examination reveals vague descriptions of the patterns, one has large triangles over an arrow along one path... Another has two long vertical lines over the arrow pointing to the second path ... and the third has a half-moon sort of shape with lots of little triangles carefully fitted inside it, over it's arrow along it's path... (If anyone looks around the rocks near where the party came in you can VERY CRUDELY think of maybe a few childish houses or something like the last structure they saw along the way... BUT only IF someone actually looks and asks about that... and you might well charge another perception to find it if you think it's appropriate for the character)... In this case, the large triangles are mountains, meaning the mountain pass. Two vertical lines is a drop-off like a cliff, or a series of clearly dangerous pit-falls or places where the trail simply isn't there... The half-moon with the little triangles inside is a smile with TEETH, so probably a horrible encounter... (It should be a right-dangerous predator) So in this case, while discussion and creativity is rewarded if they arrive at a proper conclusion, you can hear later (in town or wherever) about the mountain ranger or some wild-elf who was a nice chap going out to personally carve those symbols... even if the party had never investigated enough to hear about them or him before... AND that's enough...It sounds a bit mean, but it's not likely anyone with real wits would willingly walk right off a pit-fall or broken trail without some authentic stupidity, so the symbols are just "make you think about it" traps. You (GM) shouldn't need a visual aid to get the point across, nor should the Players need one to understand what you're talking about... Just listen and try (only a little) to dissuade them from making a clearly stupid decision... AND the worst they face is a formidable predator (or two) before they are allowed to "re-examine the decision making paradigm" or go back and take a different damn road... so it's ROLE PLAY... It's just fun, and the reward (just like real life) might only amount to convenience, or inconvenience as you see fit... Finally, unique items, even magical ones, are just that... UNIQUE. It doesn't make them particularly powerful. I've rewarded such silly things as an unbreakable lantern... exactly like any other hurricane lantern, except it looks like absolute rubbish. It's rusted. The glass is stained slightly, and the reflector is badly warped, but somehow just seems to spread light rather than focusing it for a beam (which normally is preferred in hurricane lamps)... BUT they can even use this thing like a club, and other than occasionally spilling or squirting a little oil (when convenient to story) it never goes out. It will never lose a piece of glass or crack or break... It's just a rugged and rusty old reliable source of light... You could even innocently make it of "ever-fill" just for a tad more impression and use, and let it be... I've "invented" torches that were enchanted to ignite and extinguish by twisting the "pommel" stones mounted at the base of the handles... (adventurers in the under-dark LOVE those)... And once granted the drunken dwarf of the party an "aleskin" of ever-fill... the ale-skin being exactly like a wine-skin only for ale because... dwarf... And that went over... well (considering the dwarven lush was campaigning with a zero-tolerance Paladin)...but that's just how it is being GM, you can't please everyone... The bottom line is that you can do as much to encourage creative time-passing as you can problem solving... It just takes a bit of crafty practice and a penchant for FUN. :o)

[@jodysteiner4786]

Gliphtron Training and leveling up should take time. Learning new abilities takes practice. You could implement 1 day of training per level as downtime activity. Exhaustion and resources are another way to control time. Healing potions and spell components take time and money to resupply.

[@thefishking7582]

Every campaign I have DMed has been about new characters that get thrown in over their heads, have the craziest 2 weeks of their lives (give or take), and come out the other side as level 15+ heros. I Don't see a problem with that. My players love it. I love it. I say just roll with it.

[@shadowgear7032]

Um are characters are level 3 in 9 day in game. We are doing a very apocalyptic scenario where aliens are coming down. We have mudered a thieves guild on accident, fought 3 of these aliens,a goblin horde, and a pack of wolves. This is a normal time amount for our games

[@Nerdarchy]

Shadowgear Nothing wrong with that. Matter of Fact it was literally the 1st point I made. It only matters if you care. Nerdarchist Dave

[@kankunation13]

Level 3 is pretty tame. Most tables rush to level 3 since that's when the game really starts taking off.

[@mikegould6590]

First, track actual time. Create a calendar so you know when things have happened. This is important for things like learning skills, languages, spell research, etc. Second, get them role-playing and not just doing combat. Roleplaying can eat up a lot of time and also has a collective effect where one person doing it tends to draw other players in. This sparks other roleplaying by others. This has the benefit of creating story hooks. Three, get them involved in downtime activities. Whether it's Thieves Guild activities, creating weapons and armor, or building a wagon to carry their loot. Maybe one player character is into a particular gaming set. Set up a tournament or have them deal with a master gambler. Maybe they need to track down rare berries, roots, and such for the local Alchemist so they can make healing potions. Investigations isn't just a skill. It's an activity. Get them tracking down clues, names, maps.... These three things will resolve what you're doing. I've switched to a modified Milestone XP system too. My latest group has completed only three sessions. Only four days have gone by in game. They're level 2. Why? They're busy at more than just fighting monsters. When they finish this first adventure, they will be level 3. I suspect two weeks might have gone by. It will be likely another month or so for level 4. Then a few months for level 5.... It's a big world, and travel takes time. They'll have equipment upkeep and politics to deal with. NPCs will keep them busy.

[@GuardianTactician]

The Nerdarchists did a pretty good job covering this. Here are my thoughts: Players are gaining exp and leveling up too fast? Throttle down the exp gains. The rules are only there to guide the way, and the GM can tweak things. Another option is to throw something at them that steals levels or exp. The last method without making a major shift is to include downtime where they learn new skills, spells and feats with in character actions. As the Nerdarchists said, milestone leveling is a great solution. That is what I decided to do with my game as soon as I heard about it, and my players all readily agreed to it. I said every two or three sessions they would gain a level, and probably could have said every four or five. Once they hit level ten I might slow it down a little.

[@colonjack7573]

My players have been going almost 3 in game months and are heading towards lvl 4. Give them some rp challenges like a murder mystery type adventure or set a task that requires a week's research by one character and the other players can find interesting stuff to do in the mean while. As the DM control over the flow of time is one of you most powerful tools.

[@sonofalich1825]

Easy thing to do? Use an absurdly under level quest with obscene importance. Your players are level 12. They're ready to start exploring the multiverse a bit. They are well known in the world, and have a bit of a fan base behind them. A king asks them to clean rats out of his pantry. Screw this guy, he doesn't respect the players authority. Well, the problem isn't JUST the rats. The rats are carrying a deadly disease (think a general plague), and the king is a generous ruler who feeds the masses in an annual event. If the players don't step in, hundreds of people are bound to die. This isn't a quest to challenge whether or not they can kill a few measly rats, like level 1 players. This is to showcase how far they have come as heroes. How do they solve this problem once and for all? How do they make sure the plague won't spread, despite the rats being killed, or that the rats don't come back? What do players do when they are met with setting objectives beyond what the quest giver asks? I had a player who was fresh out of boot camp. He was in a bit more of an experienced group of players, and I had them come to a town that was nearly all evacuated, aside from a black smith who refused to leave (the Smithery was a family heirloom, and something he couldn't leave behind). I made a simple mistake in describing him as clouded in ash, head to TOE. Toe, as in his boots. Telling a booter that a mans boots are dirty was more then enough to send the party spiraling to try to find a way to A) polish his shoes, B) keep them polished, and C) keep the ash off of them. I thought the plot hook was to retrieve the heart of the fire from the rampaging fire elemental, to make his forge magical in nature. Turned out to be this assholes god damned shoes. But it taught me a valuable lesson that letting players completely decimate the objectives they've set for themselves is better then the quest I will ever challenge them with.

[@Jimmy1349]

Add travel time make it so it takes time to get to places

[@clericofchaos1]

I'm a little bit disappointed. When i saw the title i thought that the players were stuck in an infinite loop caused by time travel. Now that is an interesting subject to talk about and it's why i don't use time travel in my games. This problem is simple though, just stick to milestone level ups. 1 level every 2 sessions is a pretty good mark to shoot for. Not enough players get to be level 20's in this game.

[@Jhakaro]

2 sessions is absolutely nothing. You could have 2 or 3 sessions that all take place in the one day, even four depending, if there's some big event. That'd mean the character gains 2 levels in one day or one level in one day in the more conservative version. That's crazy, that'd mean in-world the character goes from level 1 barely able to hold a sword to level 20 demigod in 20 days or even less. It should takes years at least. I don't think you should ever give out leveling based on real life sessions. The party could spend two hours coming up with a plan essentially and you give them a level for nothing. Doesn't make any sense. Either stick with xp or milestone levels for in-game story achievements I feel.

[@JacksonOwex]

Jhakaro I think you are looking at some things the wrong way, yes I said it WRONG! Just because a PC is level 1 doesn't mean they "barely know how to hold a sword". Guards often don't have any real levels, or in some games have NPC classes way less powerful than PCs and they can hold swords just fine! Also as Dave mentioned right off the bat, who cares as long as its fun keep going. Also, level 20 shouldn't be a goal for EVERY campaign. I've been gaming for almost 25 years and NEVER made it level 20. With the influx of the newer generation into gaming I feel as if story is getting sacrificed for levels. In a more recent video I mentioned I have been looking for a good classes RPG, most of these also have no levels and a variety of different XP systems used in many different ways. The first goal of any TTRPG should be fun. If that's present who cares what level the party is or how quickly they are getting said levels

[@Jhakaro]

I'd argue that it matters a lot for story. I'd also argue that more people these days are interested in the story aspect than the majority of older players who came from the power gaming, you vs dm days but that aside, reaching level 20 isn't needed but level 20 is the pinnacle of any mortal. It sets the limitations. So basically in story terms regardless of what level you end at, it gives some idea of power levels and where you want to be at to fight certain enemies. I'd make the point that for good story you want proper character progression. If you're rushing through levels every 2 sessions because you're throwing in countless monsters or whatever or speeding through plot, then it won't make for a very coherent story. Like narratively, if the characters are say in their first town and that one town has some small quests to go on, nothing big. Catch some sewer rats, kill some goblins in the forest etc. and it takes like 8 sessions to do a few odd jobs but in world it's like 3 or 4 days and yet they've gone up 2 levels? From like level 6 to 8 for just that? Even though they spent half the time lounging around the town? You can't attach player levelling to real life time in my opinion. It makes no sense narratively. The group could be lost in a forest for three sessions and be leveling up randomly. For good story, you want milestone leveling in world but that's just my viewpoint. That way they level up when they need to level up and when the story demands it or it makes sense. As for "barely able to hold a sword at level 1" I meant figuratively not literally. They Can fight alright but they're fairly new to the whole way of life and really weak. I'm not saying they have to reach level 20 but I'm saying that if 2 sessions of your game took place over one day, then they're gaining a level per day in-world, meaning they'd go from a rookie level 1 to a demigod capable of wiping out entire armies by themselves within 20 days. Less than a month which is just ludicrous levels of progression. If you want good story, it should take them years to reach that level obviously skipping over large bits of time and such when appropriate.

[@clericofchaos1]

dude, my real group is lucky to get in 2 sessions a week. if that's how you want to do it fine, but i like to be the ultimate badass as a player and as a dm i hate low level campaigns. that's sooooooo boring.

[@Jhakaro]

Are you talking to me or John? I only play 1 session per week usually. 2 sessions per week is exhausting. My point is that 2 sessions could be the same day in the game meaning the players went up a level in just one day which seems way too fast and breaks narrative in my view, that's all. But if that's how you like to play, that's great. Conversely I find later level stuff boring and mundane. Not a power gamer at all. The limitations and risk of death in lower levels is what makes it exciting. Not necessarily extremely low levels but like 3 to 8 or so maybe even to 10 but after that I find it gets a bit unwieldy in a sense. But it is great getting to use bigger badder monsters and such.

[@roygoodman1077]

I wish WOTC had included a slow and fast track for xp

[@notoriouswhitemoth]

My first question is *how did they do all that in ten days?* It sounds to me like you're not challenging them enough - their supply lines are too secure, they have too many resources and too much opportunity to bring them to bear. In short, they're not being threatened, which in turn means they're not being challenged; so why are they gaining so much xp? I've been learning about World War 1. It takes a long time and a lot of money to get supplies to soldiers and soldiers to battlefields.

[@Silentwolf4321]

ive got a group of 7 people playing a one shot soon. they are playing at lvl 7. how do i challenge the party without using monsters that will instantly kill them.

[@paulcoy9060]

How many are in a "horde" ? I would say at least a hundred. Did no one in that hundred enemies roll a crit ?

[@roumonada]

Nothing wrong with leveling to ten in a year.

[@gnarthdarkanen7464]

"Up time" versus "Down time"... A lot of things can be employed to impose a "down time" as needed for things to make sense in the game. I've always gone by the general rule "If I don't 'buy' it, why would I try to 'sell' it?"... So when you start to notice pacing that edges toward "out of whack", there are some questions to ask... What consequences (good as well as bad) actually believably come from the latest event? Be it a combat, demonic exorcism, assassination attempt or whatever, events in-game should hold similar or the same kinds of real-world impacts that such events would hold in Real life. If you've held off not just one, but TWO undead incursions on a town, no matter how small that town, there WILL be damages to deal with. You're talking about two full-on battles... and in the urban setting, there's going to be fires, rooftops caved in, zombie parts all over creation, weapons and arrows everywhere... Did anyone try any traps? Those are still posing a threat, and chances are if one did it, more did... so someone's traps are probably forgotten or the guy's dead, and can't do a thing about them... What else is going on around the party? What are the political landscapes? It may not even particularly affect the game, or even the party... BUT there is a "big" world out there and it's still spinning along minding its own business, more or less. If Undead aren't particularly ubiquitous, SOMEONE PROBABLY NOTICED a double incursion somewheres... even the middle of nowhere-squared. People tend to talk about things like that... and villagers get awfully tired of undeathly threats and demons raining out of the sky (or popping up in the parks) so they're likely to decide to move if possible... Politics can take a right nuisance turn about stuff like refugees showing up in hoards, undead spontaneously combusting in various places... kobolds stealing panties at every brothel in the realm... and probably a few things that the party didn't have any idea about until... well... MAYBE it's time to invent a "town cryer" or a "scream sheet"... or even a variety of "Ye olde bitching post"... to get the word around about important (or not so important) "real news events"... Also on the subject of news and politics, what about the nobles or leadership caste? What the hell are they doing about this up-tick in mystical and undeathly or demonic menace? Is anyone pissed about it? Or (just outside the nick of time) is a full force of "royal protectorates" showing up to take up arms and defend the town?... and how much fun will it be to harass the party for "stealing his majesty's thunder"??? Finally, during "Downtimes" however you impose one... There's more to "advancement" of a PC than adding XP and garnering levels. I've seen so-called "combat intensive" and "power games" before, and I've preferred the longer slower methods of garnering XP ONLY for enemies, and problems actually and properly resolved within the party... AND allowances for regular "mundane" healing, crafting "home-brew" spells and potions and arcanna, etc... Building or contracting weapons and armor and even designing and constructing full keeps and so forth... Trades are another worth-while "down-time" activity depending on a PC's backstory and base, so the Ranger who supposedly started, say... a fisherman, goes back to his boat and does the usual, catching fish for a fish-monger, makes a bit of coin, fixes nets, or trades (since he's got adventuring gold capital) to invest in his "dream boat" or even just for a "bigger boat"...etc... Encourage the Players to ROLE PLAY, because that's kind of the whole point in the game in the first place... BUT for some "gloss-over" styles of down-times you can just say, you crafted together so many of these... and you were able to put together (some believable number) of those sorts of things... And so on... It should still be fun... I'm pointing this out, because in my experience, combatXP intensive characters are almost invariably "weaker" than characters authentically crafted from get-go to polished product over the same levels, custom equipment and armor BEATS THE HELL out of anything you can get from the book. :o)

[@JohanFaerie]

Another thing to do is just slow down the pace, add more RP encounters or things that are interesting that don't give much if any exp. Maybe they give them a sherlockian detective case where they are talking to people cueing things together then catch the culprit and lock him up. Alot of stuff going on but maybe only exp once the case is solved and it may not be a lot.

[@AENock]

Allowing time to pass in game is quite simple. When travelling, the DM needs to describe the countryside and have players interact with the world around them. Random encounters, rests, and small side quests all give a sense of time and presents a living, breathing world. Travelling hundreds of miles shouldn't be handwaved; there should be monsters, dangerous obstacles, and passerby's. When concluding a major story, allow for down time. Players that have trade skills, award them gold for creating and selling their craftwares, have your fighters get into trouble in taverns, brothels, and underground fighting rings, etc. Also, float the idea around of having another person DM a sidequest for a few sessions. These quests won't count toward XP gain or toward milestone levels, but it allows others to build onto the world, slow time down, and gives the DM a chance to take a break and enjoy a PC. Rewarding players with gold and magic loot to keep the sense of progression would work well.

[@maromania7]

I'm the only person in my group who actually keeps track of this stuff and everyone raves about 'I keep such good notes' and 'such good immersion!"...I have a scrap paper I write names on, maybe an inside joke, and how many days that pass. that's it. downtime and note-taking really add to the campaign. time passing helps immersion. don't make it like the first one I completed, 1-11 in the span of a single week. leaves everyone wondering why anyone had an issue if a month of study could turn a pleb into a demigod XD just pick a random day for it to start on, and right down an approximation of how many days have passed. force some downtime every once in a while, if nothing else because of storms or road work or 'hey I've got a cool job I'll need done but not for another week, stick around!" you wanna get more involved, swap IRL holidays for similar ones of a different name. if you have a super-roleplayer, bring up that 'hey it's your birthday!" it's pretty simple and players look at you like you're some all-knowing genie.

[@Postmann88]

Ok I want to take a crack at this one. Your question could mean one of two things as I see it. 1st "my party is leveling too fast" or 2nd "I have woven 12 D&D sessions into 10 in game days, how do I stretch that out?" Regarding scenario #1 The xp required to gain lvl 6 is 24,400 per character. This is a considerable amount. For a party of 4, that's 1,952 zombies in that undead infestation. Unfortunately I cant imagine any party that could do that in 10 days. It seems that if this is your case, its more likely that you may be doling out xp a bit to liberally, or perhaps misinterpreted the xp rules. Regarding scenario #2 If your team is cruising around and slaying everything in site, the ability to role play travel time can be huge. At low levels it it highly unlikely that they are teleporting everywhere, Its more likely they are using caravans. The "attacked by bandits" thing only gets you so far, try thinking up other scenarios to fill out your days and really make it feel like a weeks journey. If you are traveling with a larger group, maybe something fairly important gets stolen on day 2. Now they will be dying to search for it on day 3, and will actively try not to get to the destination too quickly! Maybe your palidan overhears one of the other merchant leaders paying to make an "accident" happen to another wagon? Maybe he overhears it from the guy that is supposed to be paying you at the end of the journey. Hit em with that moral dilemma Fill your travel time with multiple events that aren't solved quickly, and that don't necessarily involve direct combat, and you will find the time concept in your game stretched out considerably. Hope some of that helps :)

[@MarvelX42]

It seems like you guys missed the point. I am not sure, because I am not Gliftron (sp?) but didn't he mean that they are getting to much XP per session and he wanted to know how to make an interesting session without having so much XP making things in them to make the game last longer so that he can build up his BB or something?

[@Nerdarchy]

MarvelX42 maybe, but we took it as they were level to fast in the time frame. 6 levels in 10 days, two undead incursions, an evil cleric, and a powerful demon all dealt with in that time period. We've also been known to make mistakes. Though Ted does address how to slow down leveling through mile stone rewards. Nerdarchist Dave

[@MarvelX42]

Sure. What I think he might want to do (which you sort of said) is to turn to political intrigue and character development. Actually that is what most of the games that I run are, with a combat encounter about every two or three sessions. Hopefully the players have made backgrounds that the DM can work with to make that happen. I ran a game for two years and they just reached level twenty at the end of that two years. Also chit chat, inside jokes and pop culture references burn alot of time if he is really worried about making more sessions. That is always a win/win. Everyone is joking, having fun and in the end that is the point. Anyways, love your channel, especially GM 911.

[@chasealmeida7228]

Monsters and spells that steal Xp or ability score. Just make these high level players fight to keep there high level.